National regulators and those involved in the nuclear industry say monitoring social media to ensure the public gets accurate information has become an essential part of their work.

“When events like this happen, we have someone here monitoring social media,” Sheehan said. “We monitor for rumor control to stop erroneous information from getting out so as not to scare the public.”

Situations such as these are why Seabrook Station’s parent company, NextEra, located in Juno Beach, Fla., now has people within its communications team monitoring social media and correcting misinformation when needed.